Hans.Moravec%CMU-RI-ROVER@sri-unix.UUCP (01/31/84)
n073 1629 30 Jan 84
BC-LAB 3takes
(ScienceTimes)
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Behind fences topped with barbed wire and doors
equipped with combination locks, dozens of young physicists and
engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory work late
into the night, six and seven days a week, on classified projects
aimed at creating the next generation of nuclear weapons.
Their dream, they say, is to end the nuclear arms race.
In many ways they trace their lineage to another group of physicists
in the 1940s who dreamed of ending World War II. Yet they are
remarkably young for their level of achievement and for their
responsibilities.
Theirs is a milieu of blue jeans, soft drinks, an occasional
science-fiction novel - and seemingly endless, all-night bouts of
work in the lab. Offices are cluttered with books and plants. Some of
the young inventors are still in graduate school, working on their
doctorates. None have ever seen a nuclear explosion.
Their quest is to channel the energy of a nuclear detonation into
focused beams of intense radiation that travel thousands of miles at
the speed of light and destroy enemy missiles in flight, eliminating
the balance of terror that has kept an uneasy peace between the
superpowers for a third of a century. They believe that President
Reagan, in what has become known as his ''Star Wars'' speech, called
on them to speed development of such weapons as a way to help create
a defensive shield against attack from space. Their key designs
number a half dozen in all, although none except X-ray lasers and
microwave weapons have been mentioned outside the world of
government-imposed secrecy.
Critics say these complex systems based on a new generation of
nuclear arms will never work. They say an enemy could outsmart them
with countermeasures, such as ''hardening'' the skin of a missile or
simply overwhelming a defense with increased numbers of missiles,
decoys, and hard-to-detect cruise missiles. The critics often oppose
the secret nuclear projects as schemes meant to increase research
budgets and to blunt public pressure for a freeze on nuclear arsenals.
In a series of interviews, the youthful designers chided the critics
as being largely uninformed about their work at Livermore and about
the merits of defensive systems. They said lots of people worried
about the bomb, but they intended to do something about it.
''We can try to negotiate treaties and things like that,'' said
Lawrence C. West, 28 years old, who is pursuing a Ph.D. while he
works at the weapons lab. ''But one thing I can do personally,
without having to wait for arms control, is to develop the technology
to eliminate them myself, to eliminate offensive nuclear weapons.''
The designs of the young physicists have come to be known in
military circles as ''third generation'' nuclear weapons. The first
generation, built in the late 1940s and early 1950s, were large atom
bombs meant to be dropped from airplanes. The second came in the late
1950s and early 1960s with the advent of compact, high-yield hydrogen
bombs that could fit atop intercontinental missiles.
The third generation is altogether different in that the power of a
nuclear explosion is focused into tight beams of radiation that can
be directed at targets in space thousands of miles away.
Dr. Edward Teller, who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and was a
founder of the Livermore Laboratory, told Congress last year that he
knew of a half-dozen ''solid'' proposals for nuclear weapons that
could be used in a defensive shield, but could ''mention these topics
only in a superficial manner'' in open session.
''Here are the whole gamut of third-generation nuclear weapons,'' he
said. ''I am 75 years old and I am one of those of closed mind who
did not invent them. But I am blessed with some young friends who
come to my office and tell me there is something new under the sun. I
regularly throw them out saying, 'Nonsense!' But they have learned
something from me. They are stubborn. They come back with new
arguments, with new proofs, and even though slowly, I learn.''
At odds with the nuclear innovations of Teller's young friends is a
formidable array of critics, not a few of whom are veterans of the
earliest American attempts to unleash the hidden powers of the atom.
With surprising unanimity, these critics today lobby for a complete
ban on the construction and testing of all nuclear weapons. The false
promise of defensive systems, they assert, will only fuel the arms
race. Among other criticisms and questions are these:
-Rationalize how you will, bombs are ultimately meant to kill people.
When he first came to Livermore, West, the physicist pursuing his
Ph.D., had reservations about working on weapons, but eventually put
them aside.
''Nowadays I would be quite willing to go and do full-time weapons
work because I see the vast possibilities,'' he said. ''A tremendous
amount of creativity is needed, and there are very few scientists
willing to do it. Nuclear weapons can devastate the world. I
recognize that. But we are making anti-weapons. My primary interest
is not trying to find better ways to kill people, but better ways to
kill arms.''
He said, for instance, that X-ray lasers cannot be used against
cities but only against objects in space, such as speeding missiles,
because the weapon's rays will not penetrate the Earth's thick
atmosphere.
West was raised an Episcopalian and was a Boy Scout. About six years
ago he graduated at the top of his class from the California
Institute of Technology and joined Livermore. Since then he has
worked mainly on the theory and experimental design of a new
generation of supercomputers.
''This group was very exciting to me, right from the first day,''
West said. ''I could talk to most people here and have them
understand me very rapidly. I just loved it.''
-What about the pope's recent plea urging scientists to give up
their ''laboratories and factories of death?''
''I don't think I fall in that category, of working on weapons of
death,'' West said. ''We're working on weapons of life, ones that
will save people from the weapons of death.''
''It's a moral decision, and I believe in it very strongly,'' he
said. ''I can't understand why everybody in the world isn't working
on finding ways to eliminate nuclear war. Obviously, the decision to
build bombs has been there for 40 years, and we keep getting more of
them. Why not find technical solutions to a technical problem?''
-Do you ever worry that the technical solutions will fail and that
you will thus contribute to the end of the world?
''I just don't see how it could bring about a cataclysm,'' said
West. ''If you have a large system with lots of redundancy, it would
work.''
Third-generation ideas, which are being pursued by all three of the
government's nuclear weapons laboratories, first came to life at
Livermore, which is run by the University of California for the
federal Department of Energy. The facility, which has 7,200 full-time
employees, is about 40 miles southeast of San Francisco.
In a corner of the laboratory is a small cluster of buildings that
house O Group, a branch of the physics department. This is where West
says he works sometimes up to 30 hours at a stretch. This, too, is
where 50 other young scientists labor on advanced ideas in such areas
as astrophysics, supercomputer fabrication, spaceship propulsion, and
nuclear weapons design. Most of them have had educations heavy in
science and technology and fairly light in humanities. A top official
at Livermore characterized O Group as ''eccentric and extraordinarily
bright.'' The group is not the only place in the nation where people
plan third-generation nuclear weapons, but it is widely regarded as
the spark plug.
Here the average scientist is in his 20s, and few, if any, wear
wedding rings. No women are present except for secretaries. The
kitchen has a microwave oven, a hot plate, a refrigerator, and a
mountain of empty Coke bottles. Not a few of the young scientists
work straight though the night, when it is easier to monopolize the
laboratory's huge computers, some of the fastest in the world.
-Aren't special problems associated with a defense that relies on
nuclear weapons?
A veteran of the O Group is Dr. Roderick A. Hyde, 31, a graduate of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in astronautical
engineering who has pioneered plans for fusion drives for starships.
A senior member of O Group, he heads a section that analyzes the
technical feasibility of new ideas. One problem with a nuclear
defense, he said, is the short time available to respond to an
attack, especially because the president ostensibly controls the
release of all nuclear weapons. ''Obviously you worry about him being
shot or, even more effectively, merely kept alive but out of
communication, so there isn't a clear devolution of presidential
authority.''
-Aren't third-generation weapons really just so much speculation?
A luminary of the O Group is Dr. Peter L. Hagelstein, 29, who is
credited with major innovations. His recent Ph.D. thesis from MIT
focused on non-nuclear ways to create X-ray lasers for scientific
use. Thick with equations, the document breaksfrom
its esoteric pace at one point to list ''future applications''
suggested by science fiction books. One is ''Ringworld,'' by Larry
Niven, a tale in which a spaceship is attacked by beam weapons.
''We have been fired upon,'' cries a character in the book. ''We are
still being fired upon, probably by X-ray lasers. This ship is now in
a state of war. Were it not for our invulnerable hull, we would be
dead.''
Publicly, the best known technical triumph pioneered by Hagelstein
and O Group has been the nuclear-pumped X-ray laser, which first came
to life about four years ago as the result of a collaboration with
senior Livermore scientists such as Dr. George F. Chapline. The
weapon is being tested at the government's underground site in
Nevada. A small nuclear bomb at its core, it takes the power of a
nuclear explosion and channels it into laser rods that emit lethal
bursts of radiation. Its possible use as a weapon system is some
years off. But according to O Group scientists, clusters of X-ray
lasers will be able to put a very large dent into the entire force of
Soviet strategic missiles, currently some 1,500 strong.
The power of the X-ray laser concept resulted in the founding of a
separate group at Livermore known as R Program, a consortium of more
than 100 laboratory personnel from different groups who are
developing and testing the X-ray laser alone. The head of R Program
is Dr. Thomas Weaver, who at 34 is one of the oldest members of O
Group.
-Given the terrible risks and uncertainties, isn't working on arms
control better than constructing any kind of bomb?
''There's a simplistic view that says work on any weapon, defensive
or offensive, is intrinsically evil, and that we should lay down our
arms,'' Weaver said. ''The other position is that we are willing to
take prudent risks in order to maintain our freedom. I for one would
not argue that technological solutions alone are sufficient. I think
they need to be combined with arms control and discussions between
countries. But I think we have to be realistic. Without technical
advances to motivate the discussions, they're less likely to happen.''
-The Russians could overwhelm a defense with decoy missiles. And
even if only 2 percent of the Soviet Union's current total arsenal of
warheads broke through a defensive shield, the resulting force of
bombs would still number 200, enough to wreak havoc on this country's
major cities.
Visibly unmoved by any of the questions and criticisms is Dr. Lowell
L. Wood, 42, a Livermore physicist who founded and heads O Group. Apt
criticism is an aid in refining ideas, he said. More research was
clearly needed, he emphasized, but the potential power of the whole
spectrum of third-generation weapons was clear.
A large man with a full beard, Wood is the principal inspiration
behind the frenetic activity of the young scientists. In separate
interviews, each of them paid tribute to Wood's scientific insights,
which include advances in laser fusion and astrophysics. And they
praised his ability to build enthusiasm. ''He has lots of confidence
that no matter how young you are, whether you are fresh out of
college with a B.S. or whatever, that you can still make a
difference,'' said Weaver of R Program.
Wood is quick with replies to critics. He says, for instance, that
decoys cost about half as much as complete missiles, and that it is
economically and militarily feasible to shoot at all apparent
missiles, ignoring whether they are real or decoys.
And, even if some nuclear warheads got through a multilayer
defensive shield, he said, the Soviet Union could never be sure which
warheads could penetrate the defenses, and whether they would strike
cities or fall on missile silos in wheat fields. Such uncertainty,
Wood said, is enough to insure that the Russians would think longer
and harder before launching an attack than they need to at present.
-Couldn't the Soviet Union make X-ray lasers and use them
offensively as ''escorts'' to attacking missiles, knocking out our
defensive systems?
''Probably not,'' said Wood, ''since the defender always appears to
have the technical edge in these situations. Defensive
third-generation systems are compact and lightweight and thus have a
great capacity to carry protective armor, all the more so because
they have to fly relatively short distances. They would be able to
ride out an attack by offensive third-generation weapons and still be
able to fire at a fleet of offensive boosters. These, on the other
hand, would be quite vulnerable. Offensive missiles are very big and
can afford to carry little extra weight over the long distances they
must fly, so technically it's exceedingly difficult to armor them in
any significant way against attack.''
In any event, scientists at Livermore, young and old alike, say
research on a new generation of nuclear weaponry will continue, even
if it is never used for a defensive shield. They say it helps them
better understand the breakthroughs in this area they assume the
Russians are making as well.
The first generation of atomic physicists built the weapons that
initially shook the earth. The second generation refined them. And
now a third generation of weapons physicists has embarked on the
exploration of a new frontier.
''There're almost an infinite number of issues to be pursued,'' said
West. ''The number of new weapon designs is limited only by one's
creativity. Most of them have not been developed beyond the stage of
thinking one afternoon, 'Gee, I suppose you can do so and so.'
There're a tremendous number of ways one might defend the country.''
nyt-01-30-84 1939est
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